POEMS 1816-1823.
A VERY MOURNFUL BALLAD[568] ON THE SIEGE AND CONQUEST OF ALHAMA.[569]
Which, in the Arabic language, is to the following purport[570]
1.
The Moorish King rides up and down.
Through Granada's royal town:
From Elvira's gates to those
Of Bivarambla on he goes.
Woe is me, Alhama![hv][571]
2.
Letters to the Monarch tell
How Alhama's city fell:
In the fire the scroll he threw,
And the messenger he slew.
Woe is me, Alhama!
3.
He quits his mule, and mounts his horse,
And through the street directs his course;
Through the street of Zacatin
To the Alhambra spurring in.
Woe is me, Alhama!
4.
When the Alhambra walls he gained,
On the moment he ordained
That the trumpet straight should sound
With the silver clarion round.
Woe is me, Alhama!
5.
And when the hollow drums of war
Beat the loud alarm afar,
That the Moors of town and plain
Might answer to the martial strain.
Woe is me, Alhama!
6.
Then the Moors, by this aware,
That bloody Mars recalled them there,
One by one, and two by two,
To a mighty squadron grew.
Woe is me, Alhama!
7.
Out then spake an aged Moor
In these words the king before,
"Wherefore call on us, oh King?
What may mean this gathering?"
Woe is me, Alhama!
8.
"Friends! ye have, alas! to know
Of a most disastrous blow—
That the Christians, stern and bold,
Have obtained Alhama's hold."
Woe is me, Alhama!
9.
Out then spake old Alfaqui,[572]
With his beard so white to see,
"Good King! thou art justly served,
Good King! this thou hast deserved.
Woe is me, Alhama!
10.
"By thee were slain, in evil hour,
The Abencerrage, Granada's flower;
And strangers were received by thee,
Of Cordova the Chivalry.
Woe is me, Alhama!
11.
"And for this, oh King! is sent
On thee a double chastisement;
Thee and thine, thy crown and realm,
One last wreck shall overwhelm.
Woe is me, Alhama!
12.
"He who holds no laws in awe,
He must perish by the law;
And Granada must be won,
And thyself with her undone."
Woe is me, Alhama!
13.
Fire flashed from out the old Moor's eyes,
The Monarch's wrath began to rise,
Because he answered, and because
He spake exceeding well of laws.[573]
Woe is me, Alhama!
14.
"There is no law to say such things
As may disgust the ear of kings:"—
Thus, snorting with his choler, said
The Moorish King, and doomed him dead.
Woe is me, Alhama!
15.
Moor Alfaqui! Moor Alfaqui![574]
Though thy beard so hoary be,[hw]
The King hath sent to have thee seized,
For Alhama's loss displeased.
Woe is me, Alhama!
16.
And to fix thy head upon
High Alhambra's loftiest stone;
That this for thee should be the law,
And others tremble when they saw.
Woe is me, Alhama!
17.
"Cavalier, and man of worth!
Let these words of mine go forth;
Let the Moorish Monarch know,
That to him I nothing owe.
Woe is me, Alhama!
18.
"But on my soul Alhama weighs,
And on my inmost spirit preys;
And if the King his land hath lost,
Yet others may have lost the most.
Woe is me, Alhama!
19.
"Sires have lost their children, wives
Their lords, and valiant men their lives!
One what best his love might claim
Hath lost, another wealth, or fame.
Woe is me, Alhama!
20.
"I lost a damsel in that hour,
Of all the land the loveliest flower;
Doubloons a hundred I would pay,
And think her ransom cheap that day."
Woe is me, Alhama!
21.
And as these things the old Moor said,
They severed from the trunk his head;
And to the Alhambra's wall with speed
'Twas carried, as the King decreed.
Woe is me, Alhama!
22.
And men and infants therein weep
Their loss, so heavy and so deep;
Granada's ladies, all she rears
Within her walls, burst into tears.
Woe is me, Alhama!
23.
And from the windows o'er the walls
The sable web of mourning falls;
The King weeps as a woman o'er
His loss, for it is much and sore.
Woe is me, Alhama!
[First published, Childe Harold, Canto IV., 1818.]
SONETTO DI VITTORELLI.[575]
PER MONACA.
Sonetto composto in nome di un genitore, a cui era motta poco innanzi una figlia appena maritata: e diretto al genitore della sacra sposa.
Di due vaghe donzelle, oneste, accorte
Lieti e miseri padri il ciel ne feo,
Il ciel, die degne di più nobil sorte
L' una e l' altra veggendo, ambe chiedeo.
La mia fu tolta da veloce morte
A le fumanti tede d' Imeneo:
La tua, Francesco, in suggellate porte
Eterna prigioniera or si rendeo.
Ma tu almeno potrai dalla gelosa
Irremeabil soglia, ove s' asconde,
La sua tenera udir voce pietosa.
Io verso un flume d' amarissim' onde,
Corro a quel marmo, in cui la figlia or posa:
Batto, e ribatto, ma nessun risponde.
[Opere Edite e Postume di J. Vittorelli, Bassano, 1841, p. 294.]
TRANSLATION FROM VITTORELLI.
ON A NUN.
Sonnet composed in the name of a father, whose daughter had recently died shortly after her marriage; and addressed to the father of her who had lately taken the veil.
Of two fair virgins, modest, though admired,
Heaven made us happy; and now, wretched sires,
Heaven for a nobler doom their worth desires,
And gazing upon either, both required.
Mine, while the torch of Hymen newly fired
Becomes extinguished,—soon—too soon expires;
But thine, within the closing grate retired,
Eternal captive, to her God aspires.
But thou at least from out the jealous door,
Which shuts between your never-meeting eyes,
May'st hear her sweet and pious voice once more:
I to the marble, where my daughter lies,
Rush,—the swoln flood of bitterness I pour,
And knock, and knock, and knock—but none replies.
[First published, Childe Harold, Canto IV., 1818.]
ON THE BUST OF HELEN BY CANOVA.[576]
In this belovéd marble view
Above the works and thoughts of Man,
What Nature could but would not do,
And Beauty and Canova can!
Beyond Imagination's power,
Beyond the Bard's defeated art,
With Immortality her dower,
Behold the Helen of the heart.
November 23, 1816.
[First published, Letters and Journals, 1830, ii. 61.]
VENICE. A FRAGMENT.[577]
'Tis midnight—but it is not dark
Within thy spacious place, St. Mark!
The Lights within, the Lamps without,
Shine above the revel rout.
The brazen Steeds are glittering o'er
The holy building's massy door,
Glittering with their collars of gold,
The goodly work of the days of old—
And the wingéd Lion stern and solemn
Frowns from the height of his hoary column,
Facing the palace in which doth lodge
The ocean-city's dreaded Doge.
The palace is proud—but near it lies,
Divided by the "Bridge of Sighs,"
The dreary dwelling where the State
Enchains the captives of their hate:
These—they perish or they pine;
But which their doom may none divine:
Many have passed that Arch of pain,
But none retraced their steps again.
It is a princely colonnade!
And wrought around a princely place,
When that vast edifice displayed
Looks with its venerable face
Over the far and subject sea,
Which makes the fearless isles so free!
And 'tis a strange and noble pile,
Pillared into many an aisle:
Every pillar fair to see,
Marble—jasper—and porphyry—
The Church of St. Mark—which stands hard by
With fretted pinnacles on high,
And Cupola and minaret;
More like the mosque of orient lands,
Than the fanes wherein we pray,
And Mary's blesséd likeness stands.—
Venice, December 6, 1816.
SO WE'LL GO NO MORE A-ROVING.[578]
1.
So we'll go no more a-roving
So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
And the moon be still as bright.
2.
For the sword outwears its sheath,
And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And Love itself have rest.
3.
Though the night was made for loving,
And the day returns too soon,
Yet we'll go no more a-roving
By the light of the moon.
Feb. 28, 1817.
[First published, Letters and Journals, 1830, ii. 79.]
[LORD BYRON'S VERSES ON SAM ROGERS.][579]
QUESTION.
Nose and Chin that make a knocker,[hx]
Wrinkles that would puzzle Cocker;
Mouth that marks the envious Scorner,
With a Scorpion in each corner
Curling up his tail to sting you,[hy]
In the place that most may wring you;
Eyes of lead-like hue and gummy,
Carcase stolen from some mummy,
Bowels—(but they were forgotten,
Save the Liver, and that's rotten),10
Skin all sallow, flesh all sodden,
Form the Devil would frighten G—d in.
Is't a Corpse stuck up for show,[580]
Galvanized at times to go?
With the Scripture has't connection,[hz]
New proof of the Resurrection?
Vampire, Ghost, or Goul (sic), what is it?
I would walk ten miles to miss it.
ANSWER.
Many passengers arrest one,
To demand the same free question.20
Shorter's my reply and franker,—
That's the Bard, and Beau, and Banker:
Yet, if you could bring about
Just to turn him inside out,
Satan's self would seem less sooty,
And his present aspect—Beauty.
Mark that (as he masks the bilious)
Air so softly supercilious,
Chastened bow, and mock humility,
Almost sickened to Servility:30
Hear his tone (which is to talking
That which creeping is to walking—
Now on all fours, now on tiptoe):
Hear the tales he lends his lip to—
Little hints of heavy scandals—
Every friend by turns he handles:
All that women or that men do
Glides forth in an inuendo (sic)—
Clothed in odds and ends of humour,
Herald of each paltry rumour—40
From divorces down to dresses,
Woman's frailties, Man's excesses:
All that life presents of evil
Make for him a constant revel.
You're his foe—for that he fears you,
And in absence blasts and sears you:
You're his friend—for that he hates you,
First obliges, and then baits you,
Darting on the opportunity
When to do it with impunity:50
You are neither—then he'll flatter,
Till he finds some trait for satire;
Hunts your weak point out, then shows it,
Where it injures, to expose it
In the mode that's most insidious,
Adding every trait that's hideous—
From the bile, whose blackening river
Rushes through his Stygian liver.
Then he thinks himself a lover—[581]
Why? I really can't discover,60
In his mind, age, face, or figure;
Viper broth might give him vigour:
Let him keep the cauldron steady,
He the venom has already.
For his faults—he has but one;
'Tis but Envy, when all's done:
He but pays the pain he suffers,
Clipping, like a pair of Snuffers,
Light that ought to burn the brighter
For this temporary blighter.70
He's the Cancer of his Species,
And will eat himself to pieces,—
Plague personified and Famine,—
Devil, whose delight is damning.[582]
For his merits—don't you know 'em?[ia]
Once he wrote a pretty Poem.
1818.
[First published, Fraser's Magazine, January, 1833, vol. vii. pp. 88-84.]
THE DUEL.[583]
1.
'Tis fifty years, and yet their fray
To us might seem but yesterday.
Tis fifty years, and three to boot,
Since, hand to hand, and foot to foot,
And heart to heart, and sword to sword,
One of our Ancestors was gored.
I've seen the sword that slew him;[584] he,
The slain, stood in a like degree
To thee, as he, the Slayer, stood
(Oh had it been but other blood!)
In kin and Chieftainship to me.
Thus came the Heritage to thee.
2.
To me the Lands of him who slew
Came through a line of yore renowned;
For I can boast a race as true
To Monarchs crowned, and some discrowned,
As ever Britain's Annals knew:
For the first Conqueror gave us Ground,[585]
And the last Conquered owned the line
Which was my mother's, and is mine.
3.
I loved thee—I will not say how,
Since things like these are best forgot:
Perhaps thou may'st imagine now
Who loved thee, and who loved thee not.
And thou wert wedded to another,[586]
And I at last another wedded:
I am a father, thou a mother,
To Strangers vowed, with strangers bedded.
For land to land, even blood to blood—
Since leagued of yore our fathers were—
Our manors and our birthright stood;
And not unequal had I wooed,
If to have wooed thee I could dare.
But this I never dared—even yet
When naught is left but to forget.
I feel that I could only love:
To sue was never meant for me,
And least of all to sue to thee;
For many a bar, and many a feud,
Though never told, well understood
Rolled like a river wide between—
And then there was the Curse of blood,
Which even my Heart's can not remove.
Alas! how many things have been!
Since we were friends; for I alone
Feel more for thee than can be shown.
4.
How many things! I loved thee—thou
Loved'st me not: another was
The Idol of thy virgin vow,
And I was, what I am, Alas!
And what he is, and what thou art,
And what we were, is like the rest:
We must endure it as a test,
And old Ordeal of the Heart.[587]
STANZAS TO THE PO.[588]
1.
River, that rollest by the ancient walls,
Where dwells the Lady of my love, when she
Walks by thy brink, and there perchance recalls
A faint and fleeting memory of me:
2.
What if thy deep and ample stream should be
A mirror of my heart, where she may read
The thousand thoughts I now betray to thee,
Wild as thy wave, and headlong as thy speed!
3.
What do I say—a mirror of my heart?
Are not thy waters sweeping, dark, and strong?
Such as my feelings were and are, thou art;
And such as thou art were my passions long.
4.
Time may have somewhat tamed them,—not for ever;
Thou overflow'st thy banks, and not for aye
Thy bosom overboils, congenial river!
Thy floods subside, and mine have sunk away:
5.
But left long wrecks behind, and now again,[ib]
Borne in our old unchanged career, we move:
Thou tendest wildly onwards to the main,
And I—to loving one I should not love.
6.
The current I behold will sweep beneath
Her native walls, and murmur at her feet;
Her eyes will look on thee, when she shall breathe
The twilight air, unharmed by summer's heat.
7.
She will look on thee,—I have looked on thee,
Full of that thought: and, from that moment, ne'er
Thy waters could I dream of, name, or see,
Without the inseparable sigh for her!
8.
Her bright eyes will be imaged in thy stream,—
Yes! they will meet the wave I gaze on now:
Mine cannot witness, even in a dream,
That happy wave repass me in its flow!
9.
The wave that bears my tears returns no more:
Will she return by whom that wave shall sweep?—
Both tread thy banks, both wander on thy shore,
I by thy source, she by the dark-blue deep.[ic]
10.
But that which keepeth us apart is not
Distance, nor depth of wave, nor space of earth,
But the distraction of a various lot,
As various as the climates of our birth.
11.
A stranger loves the Lady of the land,[id]
Born far beyond the mountains, but his blood
Is all meridian, as if never fanned
By the black wind that chills the polar flood.[ie]
12.
My blood is all meridian; were it not,
I had not left my clime, nor should I be,[if]
In spite of tortures, ne'er to be forgot,
A slave again of love,—at least of thee.
13.
'Tis vain to struggle—let me perish young—
Live as I lived, and love as I have loved;
To dust if I return, from dust I sprung,
And then, at least, my heart can ne'er be moved.
June, 1819.
[First published, Conversations of Lord Byron, 1824, 4º, pp. 24-26.]
SONNET ON THE NUPTIALS OF THE MARQUIS ANTONIO CAVALLI WITH THE COUNTESS CLELIA RASPONI OF RAVENNA.[589]
A noble Lady of the Italian shore
Lovely and young, herself a happy bride,
Commands a verse, and will not be denied,
From me a wandering Englishman; I tore
One sonnet, but invoke the muse once more
To hail these gentle hearts which Love has tied,
In Youth, Birth, Beauty, genially allied
And blest with Virtue's soul, and Fortune's store.
A sweeter language, and a luckier bard
Were worthier of your hopes, Auspicious Pair!
And of the sanctity of Hymen's shrine,
But,—since I cannot but obey the Fair,
To render your new state your true reward,
May your Fate be like Hers, and unlike mine.
Ravenna, July 31, 1819.
[From an autograph MS. in the possession of the Lady Dorchester,
now for the first time printed.]
SONNET TO THE PRINCE REGENT.[ig]
ON THE REPEAL OF LORD EDWARD FITZGERALD'S FORFEITURE.
To be the father of the fatherless,
To stretch the hand from the throne's height, and raise
His offspring, who expired in other days
To make thy Sire's sway by a kingdom less,—[ih]
This is to be a monarch, and repress
Envy into unutterable praise.
Dismiss thy guard, and trust thee to such traits,
For who would lift a hand, except to bless?[ii]
Were it not easy, Sir, and is't not sweet
To make thyself belovéd? and to be
Omnipotent by Mercy's means? for thus
Thy Sovereignty would grow but more complete,
A despot thou, and yet thy people free,[ij]
And by the heart—not hand—enslaving us.
Bologna, August 12, 1819.[590]
[First published, Letters and Journals, ii. 234, 235.]
STANZAS.[591]
1.
Could Love for ever
Run like a river,
And Time's endeavour
Be tried in vain—
No other pleasure
With this could measure;
And like a treasure[ik]
We'd hug the chain.
But since our sighing
Ends not in dying,
And, formed for flying,
Love plumes his wing;
Then for this reason
Let's love a season;
But let that season be only Spring.
2.
When lovers parted
Feel broken-hearted,
And, all hopes thwarted,
Expect to die;
A few years older,
Ah! how much colder
They might behold her
For whom they sigh!
When linked together,
In every weather,[il]
They pluck Love's feather
From out his wing—
He'll stay for ever,[im]
But sadly shiver
Without his plumage, when past the Spring.[in]
3.
Like Chiefs of Faction,
His life is action—
A formal paction
That curbs his reign,
Obscures his glory,
Despot no more, he
Such territory
Quits with disdain.
Still, still advancing,
With banners glancing,
His power enhancing,
He must move on—
Repose but cloys him,
Retreat destroys him,
Love brooks not a degraded throne.
4.
Wait not, fond lover!
Till years are over,
And then recover
As from a dream.
While each bewailing
The other's failing.
With wrath and railing,
All hideous seem—
While first decreasing,
Yet not quite ceasing,
Wait not till teasing,
All passion blight:
If once diminished
Love's reign is finished—
Then part in friendship,—and bid good-night.[io]
5.
So shall Affection
To recollection
The dear connection
Bring back with joy:
You had not waited[ip]
Till, tired or hated,
Your passions sated
Began to cloy.
Your last embraces
Leave no cold traces—
The same fond faces
As through the past:
And eyes, the mirrors
Of your sweet errors,
Reflect but rapture—not least though last.
6.
True, separations[iq]
Ask more than patience;
What desperations
From such have risen!
But yet remaining,
What is't but chaining
Hearts which, once waning,
Beat 'gainst their prison?
Time can but cloy love,
And use destroy love:
The wingéd boy, Love,
Is but for boys—
You'll find it torture
Though sharper, shorter,
To wean, and not wear out your joys.
December 1, 1819.
[First published, New Monthly Magazine, 1832, vol. xxxv. pp. 310-312.]
ODE TO A LADY WHOSE LOVER WAS KILLED
BY A BALL, WHICH AT THE SAME TIME
SHIVERED A PORTRAIT NEXT HIS HEART.
Motto.
On peut trouver des femmes qui n'ont jamais eu de galanterie, mais il est rare d'en trouver qui n'en aient jamais eu qu'une.—[Réflexions ... du Duc de la Rochefoucauld, No. lxxiii.]
1.
Lady! in whose heroic port
And Beauty, Victor even of Time,
And haughty lineaments, appear
Much that is awful, more that's dear—
Wherever human hearts resort
There must have been for thee a Court,
And Thou by acclamation Queen,
Where never Sovereign yet had been.
That eye so soft, and yet severe,
Perchance might look on Love as Crime;
And yet—regarding thee more near—
The traces of an unshed tear
Compressed back to the heart,
And mellowed Sadness in thine air,
Which shows that Love hath once been there,
To those who watch thee will disclose
More than ten thousand tomes of woes
Wrung from the vain Romancer's art.
With thee how proudly Love hath dwelt!
His full Divinity was felt,
Maddening the heart he could not melt,
Till Guilt became Sublime;
But never yet did Beauty's Zone
For him surround a lovelier throne,
Than in that bosom once his own:
And he the Sun and Thou the Clime
Together must have made a Heaven
For which the Future would be given.
2.
And thou hast loved—Oh! not in vain!
And not as common Mortals love.
The Fruit of Fire is Ashes,
The Ocean's tempest dashes
Wrecks and the dead upon the rocky shore:
True Passion must the all-searching changes prove,
The Agony of Pleasure and of Pain,
Till Nothing but the Bitterness remain;
And the Heart's Spectre flitting through the brain
Scoffs at the Exorcism which would remove.
3.
And where is He thou lovedst? in the tomb,
Where should the happy Lover be!
For him could Time unfold a brighter doom,
Or offer aught like thee?
He in the thickest battle died,
Where Death is Pride;
And Thou his widow—not his bride,
Wer't not more free—
Here where all love, till Love is made
A bondage or a trade,
Here—thou so redolent of Beauty,
In whom Caprice had seemed a duty,
Thou, who could'st trample and despise
The holiest chain of human ties
For him, the dear One in thine eyes,
Broke it no more.
Thy heart was withered to it's Core,
It's hopes, it's fears, it's feelings o'er:
Thy Blood grew Ice when his was shed,
And Thou the Vestal of the Dead.
4.
Thy Lover died, as All
Who truly love should die;
For such are worthy in the fight to fall
Triumphantly.
No Cuirass o'er that glowing heart
The deadly bullet turned apart:
Love had bestowed a richer Mail,
Like Thetis on her Son;
But hers at last was vain, and thine could fail—
The hero's and the lover's race was run.
Thy worshipped portrait, thy sweet face,
Without that bosom kept it's place
As Thou within.
Oh! enviously destined Ball!
Shivering thine imaged charms and all
Those Charms would win:
Together pierced, the fatal Stroke hath gored
Votary and Shrine, the adoring and the adored.
That Heart's last throb was thine, that blood
Baptized thine Image in it's flood,
And gushing from the fount of Faith
O'erflowed with Passion even in Death,
Constant to thee as in it's hour
Of rapture in the secret bower.
Thou too hast kept thy plight full well,
As many a baffled Heart can tell.
[From an autograph MS. in the possession of Mr. Murray, now for the first time printed.]
THE IRISH AVATAR.[ir][592]
"And Ireland, like a bastinadoed elephant, kneeling to receive the
paltry rider."—[Life of Curran, ii. 336.]
1.
Ere the daughter of Brunswick is cold in her grave,[593]
And her ashes still float to their home o'er the tide,
Lo! George the triumphant speeds over the wave,
To the long-cherished Isle which he loved like his—bride.
2.
True, the great of her bright and brief Era are gone,
The rain-bow-like Epoch where Freedom could pause
For the few little years, out of centuries won,
Which betrayed not, or crushed not, or wept not her cause.
3.
True, the chains of the Catholic clank o'er his rags,
The Castle still stands, and the Senate's no more,
And the Famine which dwelt on her freedomless crags
Is extending its steps to her desolate shore.
4.
To her desolate shore—where the emigrant stands
For a moment to gaze ere he flies from his hearth;
Tears fall on his chain, though it drops from his hands,
For the dungeon he quits is the place of his birth.
5.
But he comes! the Messiah of Royalty comes!
Like a goodly Leviathan rolled from the waves;
Then receive him as best such an advent becomes,[is]
With a legion of cooks,[594] and an army of slaves!
6.
He comes in the promise and bloom of threescore,
To perform in the pageant the Sovereign's part—[it]
But long live the Shamrock, which shadows him o'er!
Could the Green in his hat be transferred to his heart!
7.
Could that long-withered spot but be verdant again,
And a new spring of noble affections arise—
Then might Freedom forgive thee this dance in thy chain,
And this shout of thy slavery which saddens the skies.
8.
Is it madness or meanness which clings to thee now?
Were he God—as he is but the commonest clay,
With scarce fewer wrinkles than sins on his brow—
Such servile devotion might shame him away.
9.
Aye, roar in his train![595] let thine orators lash
Their fanciful spirits to pamper his pride—
Not thus did thy Grattan indignantly flash
His soul o'er the freedom implored and denied.
10.
Ever glorious Grattan! the best of the good!
So simple in heart, so sublime in the rest!
With all which Demosthenes wanted endued,
And his rival, or victor, in all he possessed.
11.
Ere Tully arose in the zenith of Rome,
Though unequalled, preceded, the task was begun—
But Grattan sprung up like a god from the tomb
Of ages, the first, last, the saviour, the one![596]
12.
With the skill of an Orpheus to soften the brute;
With the fire of Prometheus to kindle mankind;
Even Tyranny, listening, sate melted or mute,
And Corruption shrunk scorched from the glance of his mind.
13.
But back to our theme! Back to despots and slaves![iu]
Feasts furnished by Famine! rejoicings by Pain!
True Freedom but welcomes, while Slavery still raves,
When a week's Saturnalia hath loosened her chain.
14.
Let the poor squalid splendour thy wreck can afford,
(As the bankrupt's profusion his ruin would hide)
Gild over the palace, Lo! Erin, thy Lord!
Kiss his foot with thy blessing—his blessings denied![iv]
15.
Or if freedom past hope be extorted at last,[iw]
If the idol of brass find his feet are of clay,
Must what terror or policy wring forth be classed
With what monarchs ne'er give, but as wolves yield their prey?
16.
Each brute hath its nature; a King's is to reign,—
To reign! in that word see, ye ages, comprised
The cause of the curses all annals contain,
From Cæsar the dreaded to George the despised!
17.
Wear, Fingal, thy trapping![597] O'Connell, proclaim[ix]
His accomplishments! His!!! and thy country convince
Half an age's contempt was an error of fame,
And that "Hal is the rascaliest, sweetest young prince!"[iy]
18.
Will thy yard of blue riband, poor Fingal, recall
The fetters from millions of Catholic limbs?
Or, has it not bound thee the fastest of all
The slaves, who now hail their betrayer with hymns?
19.
Aye! "Build him a dwelling!" let each give his mite![598]
Till, like Babel, the new royal dome hath arisen![iz]
Let thy beggars and helots their pittance unite—
And a palace bestow for a poor-house and prison!
20.
Spread—spread for Vitellius, the royal repast,
Till the gluttonous despot be stuffed to the gorge!
And the roar of his drunkards proclaim him at last
The Fourth of the fools and oppressors called "George!"
21.
Let the tables be loaded with feasts till they groan!
Till they groan like thy people, through ages of woe!
Let the wine flow around the old Bacchanal's throne,
Like their blood which has flowed, and which yet has to flow.
22.
But let not his name be thine idol alone—
On his right hand behold a Sejanus appears!
Thine own Castlereagh! let him still be thine own!
A wretch never named but with curses and jeers!
23.
Till now, when the Isle which should blush for his birth,
Deep, deep as the gore which he shed on her soil,
Seems proud of the reptile which crawled from her earth,
And for murder repays him with shouts and a smile.[599]
24.
Without one single ray of her genius,—without
The fancy, the manhood, the fire of her race—
The miscreant who well might plunge Erin in doubt[ja]
If she ever gave birth to a being so base.
25.
If she did—let her long-boasted proverb be hushed,
Which proclaims that from Erin no reptile can spring—
See the cold-blooded Serpent, with venom full flushed,
Still warming its folds in the breast of a King![jb]
26.
Shout, drink, feast, and flatter! Oh! Erin, how low
Wert thou sunk by misfortune and tyranny, till
Thy welcome of tyrants hath plunged thee below
The depth of thy deep in a deeper gulf still.
27.
My voice, though but humble, was raised for thy right;[600]
My vote, as a freeman's, still voted thee free;
This hand, though but feeble, would arm in thy fight,[jc]
And this heart, though outworn, had a throb still for thee!
28.
Yes, I loved thee and thine, though thou art not my land;[jd]
I have known noble hearts and great souls in thy sons,
And I wept with the world, o'er the patriot band
Who are gone, but I weep them no longer as once.
29.
For happy are they now reposing afar,—
Thy Grattan, thy Curran, thy Sheridan,[601] all
Who, for years, were the chiefs in the eloquent war,
And redeemed, if they have not retarded, thy fall.
30.
Yes, happy are they in their cold English graves!
Their shades cannot start to thy shouts of to-day—
Nor the steps of enslavers and chain-kissing slaves[je]
Be stamped in the turf o'er their fetterless clay.
31.
Till now I had envied thy sons and their shore,
Though their virtues were hunted, their liberties fled;[jf]
There was something so warm and sublime in the core
Of an Irishman's heart, that I envy—thy dead.[jg]
32.
Or, if aught in my bosom can quench for an hour
My contempt for a nation so servile, though sore,
Which though trod like the worm will not turn upon power,
'Tis the glory of Grattan, and genius of Moore![jh][602]
Ra. September 16, 1821.
[First published, Conversations of Lord Byron, 1824, pp. 331-338.]
STANZAS WRITTEN ON THE ROAD BETWEEN FLORENCE AND PISA.[603]
1.
Oh, talk not to me of a name great in story—
The days of our Youth are the days of our glory;
And the myrtle and ivy of sweet two-and-twenty
Are worth all your laurels, though ever so plenty.[604]
2.
What are garlands and crowns to the brow that is wrinkled?
Tis but as a dead flower with May-dew besprinkled:
Then away with all such from the head that is hoary,
What care I for the wreaths that can only give glory?
3.
Oh Fame!—if I e'er took delight in thy praises,
'Twas less for the sake of thy high-sounding phrases,
Than to see the bright eyes of the dear One discover,
She thought that I was not unworthy to love her.
4.
There chiefly I sought thee, there only I found thee;
Her Glance was the best of the rays that surround thee,
When it sparkled o'er aught that was bright in my story,
I knew it was Love, and I felt it was Glory.
November 6, 1821.
[First published, Letters and Journals of Lord Byron, 1830, ii. 366, note.]
STANZAS TO A HINDOO AIR.[605]
1.
Oh! my lonely—lonely—lonely—Pillow!
Where is my lover? where is my lover?
Is it his bark which my dreary dreams discover?
Far—far away! and alone along the billow?
2.
Oh! my lonely—lonely—lonely—Pillow!
Why must my head ache where his gentle brow lay?
How the long night flags lovelessly and slowly,
And my head droops over thee like the willow!
3.
Oh! thou, my sad and solitary Pillow!
Send me kind dreams to keep my heart from breaking,
In return for the tears I shed upon thee waking;
Let me not die till he comes back o'er the billow.
4.
Then if thou wilt—no more my lonely Pillow,
In one embrace let these arms again enfold him,
And then expire of the joy—but to behold him!
Oh! my lone bosom!—oh! my lonely Pillow!
[First published, Works of Lord Byron, 1832, xiv. 357.]
TO——[606]
1.
But once I dared to lift my eyes—
To lift my eyes to thee;
And since that day, beneath the skies,
No other sight they see.
2.
In vain sleep shuts them in the night—
The night grows day to me;
Presenting idly to my sight
What still a dream must be.
3.
A fatal dream—for many a bar
Divides thy fate from mine;
And still my passions wake and war,
But peace be still with thine.
[First published, New Monthly Magazine, 1833, vol. 37, p. 308.]
TO THE COUNTESS OF BLESSINGTON.
1.
You have asked for a verse:—the request
In a rhymer 'twere strange to deny;
But my Hippocrene was but my breast,
And my feelings (its fountain) are dry.
2.
Were I now as I was, I had sung
What Lawrence has painted so well;[607]
But the strain would expire on my tongue,
And the theme is too soft for my shell.
3.
I am ashes where once I was fire,
And the bard in my bosom is dead;
What I loved I now merely admire,
And my heart is as grey as my head.
4.
My Life is not dated by years—
There are moments which act as a plough,
And there is not a furrow appears
But is deep in my soul as my brow.
5.
Let the young and the brilliant aspire
To sing what I gaze on in vain;
For Sorrow has torn from my lyre
The string which was worthy the strain.
B.
[First published, Letters and Journals, 1830, ii. 635, 636.]
ARISTOMENES.[608]
Canto First.
1.
The Gods of old are silent on the shore.
Since the great Pan expired, and through the roar
Of the Ionian waters broke a dread
Voice which proclaimed "the Mighty Pan is dead."
How much died with him! false or true—the dream
Was beautiful which peopled every stream
With more than finny tenants, and adorned
The woods and waters with coy nymphs that scorned
Pursuing Deities, or in the embrace
Of gods brought forth the high heroic race10
Whose names are on the hills and o'er the seas.
Cephalonia, Septr 10th 1823.
[From an autograph MS. in the possession of the Lady Dorchester,
now for the first time printed.]
FOOTNOTES:
[ [568] {529}[Byron does not give his authority for the Spanish original of his Romance Muy Doloroso. In default of any definite information, it may be surmised that his fancy was caught by some broadside or chap-book which chanced to come into his possession, and that he made his translation without troubling himself about the origin or composition of the ballad. As it stands, the "Romance" is a cento of three or more ballads which are included in the Guerras Civiles de Granada of Ginès Perez de Hita, published at Saragossa in 1595 (see ed. "En Alcala de Henares," 1601, pp. 249-252). Stanzas 1-11, "Passeavase el Rey Moro," etc., follow the text which De Hita gives as a translation from the Arabic; stanzas 12-14 are additional, and do not correspond with any of the Spanish originals; stanzas 15-21, with numerous deviations and omissions, follow the text of a second ballad, "Moro Alcayde, Moro Alcayde," described by De Hita as "antiguo Romance," and portions of stanzas 21-23 are imbedded in a ballad entitled "Muerte dada á Los Abencerrajes" (Duran's Romancero General, 1851, ii. 89).
The ballad as a whole was not known to students of Spanish literature previous to the publication of Byron's translation (1818), (see Ancient Ballads from the Civil Wars of Granada, by Thomas Rodd, 1801, pp. 93, 98; Southey's Common-Place Book, iv. 262-266, and his Chronicle of the Cid, 1808, pp. 371-374), and it has not been included by H. Duran in his Romancero General, 1851, ii. 89-91, or by F. Wolf and C. Hofmann in their Primavera y Flor de Romances, 1856, i. 270-278. At the same time, it is most improbable that Byron was his own "Centonista," and it may be assumed that the Spanish text as printed (see Childe Harold, Canto IV., 1818, pp. 240-254, and Poetical Works, 1891, pp. 566, 567) was in his possession or within his reach. (For a correspondence on the subject, see Notes and Queries, Third Series, vol. xii. p. 391, and Fourth Series, vol. i. p. 162.)
A MS. of the Spanish text, sent to England for "copy," is in a foreign handwriting. Two MSS. (A, B) of the translation are in Mr. Murray's possession: A, a rough draft; B, a fair copy. The watermark of A is 1808, of B (dated January 4, 1817) 1800. It is to be noted that the refrain in the Spanish text is Ay de mi Alhama, and that the insertion of the comma is a printer's or reader's error.]
[ [569] {530}[In A.D. 886, during the reign of Muley Abul Hacen, King of Granada, Albania was surprised and occupied by the Christians under Don Rodrigo Ponce de Leon.]
[ [570] The effect of the original ballad—which existed both in Spanish and Arabic—was such, that it was forbidden to be sung by the Moors, on pain of death, within Granada. ["This ballad was so dolorous in the original Arabic language, that every time it was sung it acted as an incitement to grief and despair, and for this reason it was at length finally prohibited in Granada."—Historia ... de las Guerras Civiles, translated from the Arabic of Abenhamim, by Ginès Perez de Hita, and from the Spanish by Thomas Rodd, 1803, p. 334. According to Ticknor (Hist. of Spanish Literature, 1888, iii. 139), the "Arabic origin" of De Hita's work is not at all probable. "He may have obtained Arabic materials for parts of his story.">[
[ [hv] Alas—alas—Alhama!—[MS. M.]
[ [571] [Byron's Ay de mi, Alhama, which should be printed Ay de mi Alhama, must be rendered "Woe for my Alhama!" "Woe is me, Alhama!" is the equivalent of "Ay de mi Alhama!">[
[ [572] {531}["Un viejo Alfaqui" is "an old Alfaqui," i.e. a doctor of the Mussulman law, not a proper name.]
[ [573] {532}["De leyes tambien hablava" should be rendered "He spake 'also' of the laws," not tan bien, "so well," or "exceeding well.">[
[ [574] {533}[The Alcaide or "governor" of the original ballad is converted into the Alfaqui of stanza 9. It was the "Alcaide," in whose absence Alhama was taken, and who lost children, wife, honour, and his own head in consequence (Notes and Queries, iv. i. 162).]
[ [hw]——so white to see.—[MS. M.]
[ [575] {535}[Jacopo Vittorelli (1749-1835) was born at Bassano, in Venetian territory. Under the Napoleonic "kingdom of Italy" he held office as a subordinate in the Ministry of Education at Milan, and was elected a member of the college of "Dotti." At a later period of his life he returned to Bassano, and received an appointment as censor of the press. His poetry, which is sweet and musical, but lacking in force and substance, recalls and embodies the style and spirit of the dying literature of the eighteenth century. "He lived and died," says Luigi Carrer, "the poet of Irene and Dori," unmoved by the hopes and fears, the storms and passions, of national change and development.—See Manuale della Letteratura Italiana, by A. d'Ancona and O. Bacci, 1894, iv. 585.]
[ [576] {536}["The Helen of Canova (a bust which is in the house of Madame the Countess d'Albrizzi, whom I know) is without exception, to my mind, the most perfectly beautiful of human conceptions, and far beyond my ideas of human execution,"—Letter to Murray, November 25, 1816. In the works of Antonio Canova, engraved in outline by Henry Moses (London, 1873), the bust of Helen is figured (to face p. 58), and it is stated that it was executed in 1814, and presented to the Countess Albrizzi. (See Letters, 1900, iv. 14, 15, note.)]
[ [577] {537}[From an autograph MS. in the possession of Mr. Murray, now for the first time printed.]
[ [578] {538}["The mumming closed with a masked ball at the Fenice, where I went, as also to most of the ridottos, etc., etc.; and, though I did not dissipate much upon the whole, yet I find 'the sword wearing out the scabbard,' though I have but just turned the corner of twenty-nine."—Letter to Moore, February 28, 1817. The verses form part of the letter. (See Letters, 1900, iv. 59, 60.)]
[ [579] [Lady Blessington told Crabb Robinson (Diary, 1869, in. 17) that the publication of the Question and Answer would "kill Rogers." The MS. is dated 1818, and it is probable that the lines were written in the early spring of that year. Moore or Murray had told Byron that Rogers was in doubt whether to praise or blame him in his poem on "Human Life" now approaching completion; and he had heard, from other sources, that it was Rogers who was the author or retailer of certain scandalous stories which were current in the "whispering-gallery of the world." He had reason to believe that everybody was talking about him, and it was a relief to be able to catch and punish so eminent a scandal-monger. It was in this spirit that he wrote to Murray (February 20, 1818), "What you tell me of Rogers, ... is like him. He cannot say that I have not been a sincere and warm friend to him, till the black drop of his liver oozed through too palpably to be overlooked. Now if I once catch him at any of his jugglery with me or mine, let him look to it," etc., etc., and in all probability the "poem on Rogers" was then in existence, or was working in his brain. The lines once written, Byron swallowed his venom, and, when Rogers visited Italy in the autumn of 1821, he met him at Bologna, travelled with him across the Apennines to Florence, and invited him "to stay as long as he liked" at Pisa. Thither Rogers came, presumably, in November, 1821, and, if we may trust the Table Talk (1856, p. 238), remained at the Palazzo Lanfranchi for several days.
Byron seems to have been more than usually provocative and cross-grained, and, on one occasion (see Medwin, Angler in Wales, 1834, i. 26, sq.; and Records of Shelley, etc., by E. T. Trelawney, 1878, i. 53), when he was playing billiards, and Rogers was in the lobby outside, secretly incited his bull-dog, "Faithful Moretto," to bark and show his teeth; and, when Medwin had convoyed the terror-stricken bard into his presence, greeted him with effusion, but contrived that he should sit down on the very sofa which hid from view the MS. of "Question and Answer." Longa est injuria, longæ ambages; but the story rests on the evidence of independent witnesses.
By far the best comment on satire and satirist is to be found in the noble lines in Italy, in which Rogers commemorates his last meeting with the "Youth who swam from Sestos to Abydos"—
"If imagined wrongs
Pursued thee, urging thee sometimes to do
Things long regretted, oft, as many know,
None more than I, thy gratitude would build
On slight foundations; and, if in thy life
Not happy, in thy death thou surely wert,
Thy wish accomplished."
Poems by Samuel Rogers, 1852, ii. 119.]
[ [hx]——would shame a knocker.—[Fraser's Magazine, 1833.]
[ [hy] {539}Turning its quick tail——.—[Fraser's, etc.]
[ [580] {540}["'De mortuis nihil nisi bonum!' There is Sam Rogers [No. IV. of the Maclise Caricatures] a mortal likeness—painted to the very death!" A string of jests upon Rogers's corpse-like appearance accompanied the portrait.]
[ [hz] With the Scripture in connexion.—[Fraser's, etc.]
[ [581] {541}[Among other "bogus" notes (parodies of the notes in Murray's new edition of Byron's Works in seventeen volumes), is one signed Sir E. Brydges, which enumerates a string of heiresses, beauties, and blues, whom Rogers had wooed in vain. Among the number are Mrs. Apreece (Lady Davy), Mrs. Coutts, "beat by the Duke of St. Albans," and the Princess Olive of Cumberland. "We have heard," the note concludes, "that he proposed for the Duchess of Cleveland, and was cut out by Beau Fielding, but we think that must have been before his time a little.">[
[ [582] {542}["If 'the person' had not by many little dirty sneaking traits provoked it, I should have been silent, though I had observed him. Here follows an alteration. Put—
"Devil with such delight in damning
That if at the resurrection
Unto him the free selection
Of his future could be given
'Twould be rather Hell than Heaven.
You have a discretionary power about showing."—Letter to Murray, November 9, 1820, Letters, 1901, v. 113.]
[ [ia]——would you know 'em?—[Fraser's, etc.]
[ [583] [Addressed to Miss Chaworth, in allusion to a duel fought between two of their ancestors, D[ominus] B[yron] and Mr. C., January 26, 1765.
Byron and Mary Anne Chaworth were fourth cousins, both being fifth in descent from George, Viscount Chaworth, whose daughter Elizabeth was married to William, third Lord Byron (d. 1695), the poet's great-great-grandfather. The duel between their grand-uncles, William, fifth Lord Byron, and William Chaworth, Esq., of Annesley, was fought between eight and nine o'clock in the evening of Saturday, January 26, 1765 (see The Gazetteer, Monday, January 28, 1765), at the Star and Garter Tavern, Pall Mall. The coroner's jury brought in a verdict of wilful murder (see for the "Inquisition," and report of trial, Journals of the House of Lords, 1765, pp. 49, 126-135), and on the presentation of their testimony to the House of Lords, Byron pleaded for a trial "by God and his peers," whereupon he was arrested and sent to the Tower. The case was tried by the Lords Temporal (the Lords Spiritual asked permission to withdraw), and, after a defence had been read by the prisoner, 119 peers brought in a verdict of "Not guilty of murder, guilty of manslaughter, on my honour." Four peers only returned a verdict of "Not guilty." The result of this verdict was that Lord Byron claimed the benefit of the statute of Edward VI., and was discharged on paying the fees.
The defence, which is given in full (see Journal, etc., for April 17, 1765), is able and convincing. Whilst maintaining an air of chivalry and candour, the accused contrived to throw the onus of criminality on his antagonist. It was Mr. Chaworth who began the quarrel, by sneering at his cousin's absurd and disastrous leniency towards poachers. It was Chaworth who insisted on an interview, not on the stairs, but in a private room, who locked the door, and whose demeanour made a challenge "to draw" inevitable. The room was dimly lit, and when the table was pushed back, the space for the combatants was but twelve feet by five. After two thrusts had been parried, and Lord Byron's shirt had been torn, he shifted a little to the right, to take advantage of such light as there was, came to close quarters with his adversary and, "as he supposed, gave the unlucky wound which he would ever reflect upon with the utmost regret."
If there was any truth in his plea, the "wicked Lord Byron" has been misjudged, and, at least in the matter of the duel, was not so black as he has been painted. For Byron's defence of his grand-uncle, see letter to M. J. J. Coulmann, Genoa, July 12, 1823, Life, by Karl Elze, 1872, pp. 443-446.]
[ [584] {543}[In the coroner's "Inquisition," the sword is described as being "made of iron and steel, of the value of five shillings." Byron says that "so far from feeling any remorse for having killed Mr. Chaworth, who was a fire-eater (spadassin), ... he always kept the sword ... in his bed-chamber, where it still was when he died."—Ibid., p. 445.]
[ [585] [Ralph de Burun held Horestan Castle and other manors from the Conqueror. Byron's mother was descended from James I. of Scotland.]
[ [586] {544}[See The Dream, line 127, et passim, vide ante, [p. 31], et sq.]
[ [587] [From an autograph MS. in the possession of Mr. Murray, now for the first time printed.]
[ [588] {545} [There has been some misunderstanding with regard to this poem. According to the statement of the Countess Guiccioli (see Works of Lord Byron, ed. 1832, xii. 14), "Stanzas to the Po" were composed about the middle of April, 1819, "while Lord Byron was actually sailing on the Po," en route from Venice to Ravenna. Medwin, who was the first to publish the lines (Conversations, etc., 1824, 410, pp. 24-26), says that they were written when Byron was about to "quit Venice to join" the Countess at Ravenna, and, in a footnote, explains that the river referred to is the Po. Now, if the Countess and Medwin (and Moore, who follows Medwin, Life, p. 396) are right, and the river is the Po, the "ancient walls" Ravenna, and the "Lady of the land" the Guiccioli, the stanzas may have been written in June (not April), 1819, possibly at Ferrara, and the river must be the Po di Primaro. Even so, the first line of the first stanza and the third and fourth lines of the ninth stanza require explanation. The Po does not "roll by the ancient walls" of Ravenna; and how could Byron be at one and the same time "by the source" (stanza 9, line 4), and sailing on the river, or on some canalized tributary or effluent? Be the explanation what it may—and it is possible that the lines were not originally designed for the Countess, but for another "Lady of the land" (see letter to Murray, May 18, 1819)—it may be surmised that "the lines written last year on crossing the Po," the "mere verses of society," which were given to Kinnaird (see letter to Murray, May 8, 1820, and Conversations of Lord Byron with Lady Blessington, 1834, p. 143), were not the sombre though passionate elegy, "River, that rollest," but the bitter and somewhat cynical rhymes, "Could Love for ever, Run like a river" (vide post, [p. 549]).]
[ [ib] {546}
But left long wrecks behind them, and again.
Borne on our old unchanged career, we move;
Thou tendest wildly onward to the main.—[Medwin.]
[ [ic] I near thy source——.—[Medwin.]
[ [id] {547} A stranger loves a lady——.—[Medwin.]
[ [ie] By the bleak wind——.—[Medwin.]
[ [if] I had not left my clime;—I shall not be.—[Medwin.]
[ [589] I wrote this sonnet (after tearing the first) on being repeatedly urged to do so by the Countess G. [It was at the house of the Marquis Cavalli, uncle to the countess, that Byron appeared in the part of a fully-recognized "Cicisbeo."—See letter to Hoppner, December 31, 1819, Letters, 1900, iv. 393.]
[ [ig] {548} To the Prince Regent on the repeal of the bill of attainder against Lord E. Fitzgerald, June, 1819.
[ [ih] To leave——.—[MS. M.]
[ [ii] Who now would lift a hand——.—[MS. M.]
——becomes but more complete
Thyself a despot——.—[MS. M.]
[ [590] ["So the prince has been repealing Lord Fitzgerald's forfeiture? Ecco un' Sonetto! There, you dogs! there's a Sonnet for you: you won't have such as that in a hurry from Mr. Fitzgerald. You may publish it with my name, an ye wool. He deserves all praise, bad and good; it was a very noble piece of principality."—Letter to Murray, August 12, 1819.
For [William Thomas] Fitgerald, see Poetical Works, 1898, i. 297, note 3; for Lord Edward Fitzgerald (1763-1798), see Letters, 1900, iv. 345, note 1. The royal assent was given to a bill for "restoring Edward Fox Fitzgerald and his sisters Pamela and Lucy to their blood," July 13, 1819. The sonnet was addressed to George IV. when Prince Regent. The title, "To George the Fourth," affixed in 1831, is incorrect.]
[ [591] {549}["A friend of Lord Byron's, who was with him at Ravenna when he wrote these stanzas, says, They were composed, like many others, with no view of publication, but merely to relieve himself in a moment of suffering. He had been painfully excited by some circumstances which appeared to make it necessary that he should immediately quit Italy; and in the day and the hour that he wrote the song was labouring under an access of fever" (Works, 1832, xii. 317, note 1). Here, too, there is some confusion of dates and places. Byron was at Venice, not at Ravenna, December 1, 1819, when these lines were composed. They were sent, as Lady Blessington testifies, to Kinnaird, and are probably identical with the "mere verses of society," mentioned in the letter to Murray of May 8, 1820. The last stanza reflects the mood of a letter to the Countess Guiccioli, dated November 25 (1819), "I go to save you, and leave a country insupportable to me without you" (Letters, 1900, iv. 379, note 2).]
[ [ik] And as a treasure.—[MS. Guiccioli.]
[ [il] {550}
Through every weather
We pluck.—[MS. G.]
He'll sadly shiver
And droop for ever,
Shorn of the plumage which sped his spring.—[MS. G.]
[ [in]——that sped his Spring.—[MS. G.]
[ [io] {551}
His reign is finished
One last embrace, then, and bid good-night.—[MS. G.]
You have not waited
Till tired and hated
All passions sated.—[MS. G.]
[ [iq] {552} True separations.—[MS. G.]
[ [ir] {555} The enclosed lines, as you will directly perceive, are written by the Rev. W. L. Bowles. Of course it is for him to deny them, if they are not.—[Letter to Moore, September 17, 1821, Letters, 1901, v. 364.]
[ [592] [A few days before Byron enclosed these lines in a letter to Moore (September 17, 1821) he had written to Murray (September 12): "If ever I do return to England ... I will write a poem to which English Bards, etc., shall be New Milk, in comparison. Your present literary world of mountebanks stands in need of such an Avatar." Hence the somewhat ambiguous title. The word "Avatar" is not only applied ironically to George IV. as the "Messiah of Royalty," but metaphorically to the poem, which would descend in the "Capacity of Preserver" (see Sir W. Jones, Asiatic Research, i. 234).
The "fury" which sent Byron into this "lawless conscription of rhythmus," was inspired partly by an ungenerous attack on Moore, which appeared in the pages of John Bull ("Thomas Moore is not likely to fall in the way of knighthood ... being public defaulter in his office to a large amount.... [August 5]. It is true that we cannot from principle esteem the writer of the Twopenny Postbag.... It is equally true that we shrink from the profligacy," etc., August 12, 1821); and, partly, by the servility of the Irish, who had welcomed George IV. with an outburst of enthusiastic loyalty, when he entered Dublin in triumph within ten days of the death of Queen Caroline. The Morning Chronicle, August 8-August 18, 1821, prints effusive leading articles, edged with black borders, on the Queen's illness, death, funeral procession, etc., over against a column (in small type) headed "The King in Dublin." Byron's satire is a running comment on the pages of the Morning Chronicle. Moore was in Paris at the time, being, as John Bull said, "obliged to live out of England," and Byron gave him directions that twenty copies of the Irish Avatar "should be carefully and privately printed off." Medwin says that Byron gave him "a printed copy," but his version (see Conversations, 1824, pp. 332-338), doubtless for prudential reasons, omits twelve of the more libellous stanzas. The poem as a whole was not published in England till 1831, when "George the despised" was gone to his account. According to Crabb Robinson (Diary, 1869, ii. 437), Goethe said that "Byron's verses on George IV. (Query? The Irish Avatar) were the sublime of hatred.">[
[ [593] {556}[The Queen died on the night (10.20 p.m.) of Tuesday, August 7. The King entered Dublin in state Friday, August 17. The vessel bearing the Queen's remains sailed from Harwich on the morning of Saturday, August 18, 1821.]
[ [is] ——such a hero becomes.—[MS. M.]
[ [594] ["Seven covered waggons arrived at the Castle (August 3). They were laden with plate.... Upwards of forty men cooks will be employed."—Morning Chronicle, August 8.]
[ [it] {557} in the pageant——.—[MS. M.]
[ [595] ["Never did I witness such enthusiasm.... Cheer followed cheer—and shout followed shout ... accompanied by exclamation of 'God bless King George IV.!' 'Welcome, welcome, ten thousand times to these shores!'"—Morning Chronicle, August 16.]
[ [596] {558}["After the stanza on Grattan, ... will it please you to cause insert the following Addenda, which I dreamed of during to-day's Siesta."—Letter to Moore, September 20, 1821.]
[ [iu] Aye! back to our theme——.—[Medwin]
[ [iv] Kiss his foot, with thy blessing, for blessings denied!—[Medwin.]
[ [iw] Or if freedom——.—[Medwin.]
[ [597] {559}["The Earl of Fingall (Arthur James Plunkett, K.P., eighth earl, d. 1836), the leading Catholic nobleman, is to be created a Knight of St. Patrick."—Morning Chronicle, August 18.]
[ [ix] Wear Fingal thy ribbon——.—[MS. M.]
[ [iy] And the King is no scoundrel—whatever the Prince.—[MS. M.]
[ [598] [There was talk of a testimonial being presented to the King. O'Connell suggested that if possible it should take the form of "a palace, to which not only the rank around him could contribute, but to the erection of which every peasant could from his cottage contribute his humble mite."—Morning Chronicle, August 18.]
[ [iz] Till proudly the new——.—[MS. M.]
[ [599] {560}["The Marquis of Londonderry was cheered in the Castle-yard." "He was," says the correspondent of the Morning Chronicle, "the instrument of Ireland's degradation—he broke down her spirit, and prostrated, I fear, for ever her independence. To see the author of this measure cheered near the very spot," etc.]
[ [ja]——might make Humanity doubt.—[MS. M.]
[ [jb]——in the heart of a king.—[Medwin. MS. M. erased.]
[ [600] {561}[Byron spoke and voted in favour of the Earl of Donoughmore's motion for a Committee on the Roman Catholic claims, April 21, 1812. (See "Parliamentary Speeches," Appendix II., Letters, 1898, ii. 431-443.)]
[ [jc] My arm, though but feeble——.—[Medwin.]
[ [jd]——though thou wert not my land.—[Medwin.]
[ [601] [For Grattan and Curran, see letter to Moore, October 2, 1813, Letters, 1898, ii. 271, note 1; for Sheridan, see "Introduction to Monody," etc., ante, pp. [69], [70].]
Nor the steps of enslavers, and slave-kissing slaves
Be damp'd in the turf——.—[Medwin.]
[ [jf] Though their virtues are blunted——.—[Medwin.]
[ [jg] {562}——that I envy their dead.—[Medwin.]
[ [jh] They're the heart—the free spirit—the genius of Moore.—[MS. M.]
[ [602] ["Signed W. L. B——, M.A., and written with a view to a Bishoprick."—Letters and Journals, 1830, ii. 527, note.
Endorsed, "MS. Lord Byron. The King's visit to Ireland; a very seditious and horrible libel, which never was intended to be published, and which Lord B. called, himself, silly, being written in a moment of ill nature.—C. B.">[
[ [603] ["I composed these stanzas (except the fourth, added now) a few days ago, on the road from Florence to Pisa."—Pisa, 6th November, 1821, Detached Thoughts, No. 118, Letters, 1901, v. 466.]
[ [604] ["I told Byron that his poetical sentiments of the attractions of matured beauty had, at the moment, suggested four lines to me; which he begged me to repeat, and he laughed not a little when I recited the following lines to him:—
"Oh! talk not to me of the charms of Youth's dimples,
There's surely more sentiment center'd in wrinkles.
They're the triumphs of Time that mark Beauty's decay,
Telling tales of years past, and the few left to stay."
Conversations of Lord Byron, 1834, pp. 255, 256.]
[ [605] {563}[These verses were written by Lord Byron a little before he left Italy for Greece. They were meant to suit the Hindostanee air, "Alia Malla Punca," which the Countess Guiccioli was fond of singing.—Editor's note, Works, etc., xiv. 357, Pisa, September, 1821.]
[ [606] {564}[Probably "To Lady Blessington," who includes them in her Conversations of Lord Byron.]
[ [607] {565}[For reproduction of Lawrence's portrait of Lady Blessington, see "List of Illustrations," Letters, 1901, v. [xv.].]
[ [608] {566}[Aristomenes, the Achilles of the Alexandrian poet Rhianus (Grote's History of Greece, 1869, ii. 428), is the legendary hero of the second Messenian War (B.C. 685-668). Thrice he slew a hundred of the Spartan foe, and thrice he offered the Hekatomphonia on Mount Ithome. His name was held in honour long after "the rowers on their benches" heard the wail, "Pan, Pan is dead!" At the close of the second century of the Christian era, Pausanias (iv. 16. 4) made a note of Messenian maidens hymning his victory over the Lacedæmonians—
"From the heart of the plain he drove them,
And he drove them back to the hill:
To the top of the hill he drove them,
As he followed them, followed them still!"
Byron was familiar with Thomas Taylor's translation of the Periegesis Græciæ (vide ante, [p. 109], and "Observations," etc., Letters, v. Appendix III. p. 574), and with Mitford's Greece (Don Juan, Canto XII. stanza xix. line 7). Hence his knowledge of Aristomenes. The thought expressed in lines 5-11 was, possibly, suggested by Coleridge's translation of the famous passage in Schiller's Piccolomini (act ii. sc. 4, lines 118, sq., "For fable is Love's world, his home," etc.), which is quoted by Sir Walter Scott, in the third chapter of Guy Mannering.]
THE BLUES:
A LITERARY ECLOGUE.
"Nimium ne crede colori."—Virgil, [Ecl. ii. 17]
O trust not, ye beautiful creatures, to hue, Though your hair were as red, as your stockings are blue.
INTRODUCTION TO THE BLUES.
Byron's correspondence does not explain the mood in which he wrote The Blues, or afford the slightest hint or clue to its motif or occasion. In a letter to Murray, dated Ravenna, August 7, 1821, he writes, "I send you a thing which I scribbled off yesterday, a mere buffoonery, to quiz 'The Blues.' If published it must be anonymously.... You may send me a proof if you think it worth the trouble." Six weeks later, September 20, he had changed his mind. "You need not," he says, "send The Blues, which is a mere buffoonery not meant for publication." With these intimations our knowledge ends, and there is nothing to show why in August, 1821, he took it into his head "to quiz The Blues," or why, being so minded, he thought it worth while to quiz them in so pointless and belated a fashion. We can but guess that an allusion in a letter from England, an incident at a conversazione at Ravenna, or perhaps the dialogues in Peacock's novels, Melincourt and Nightmare Abbey, brought to his recollection the half-modish, half-literary coteries of the earlier years of the Regency, and that he sketches the scenes and persons of his eclogue not from life, but from memory.
In the Diary of 1813, 1814, there is more than one mention of the "Blues." For instance, November 27, 1813, he writes, "Sotheby is a Littérateur, the oracle of the Coteries of the * *'s, Lydia White (Sydney Smith's 'Tory Virgin'), Mrs. Wilmot (she, at least, is a swan, and might frequent a purer stream), Lady Beaumont and all the Blues, with Lady Charlemont at their head." Again on December 1, "To-morrow there is a party purple at the 'blue' Miss Berry's. Shall I go? um!—I don't much affect your blue-bottles;—but one ought to be civil.... Perhaps that blue-winged Kashmirian butterfly of book-learning Lady Charlemont will be there" (see Letters, 1898, ii. 333, 358, note 2).
Byron was, perhaps, a more willing guest at literary entertainments than he professed to be. "I met him," says Sir Walter Scott (Memoirs of the Life, etc., 1838, ii. 167), "frequently in society.... Some very agreeable parties I can recollect, particularly one at Sir George Beaumont's, where the amiable landlord had assembled some persons distinguished for talent. Of these I need only mention the late Sir Humphry Davy.... Mr. Richard Sharpe and Mr. Rogers were also present."
Again, Miss Berry, in her Journal (1866, in. 49) records, May 8, 1815, that "Lord and Lady Byron persuaded me to go with them to Miss [Lydia] White (vide post, [p. 587]). Never have I seen a more imposing convocation of ladies arranged in a circle than when we entered ... Lord Byron brought me home. He stayed to supper." If he did not affect "your blue-bottles," he was on intimate terms with Madame de Staël, "the Begum of Literature," as Moore called her; with the Contessa d'Albrizzi (the De Staël of Italy); with Mrs. Wilmot, the inspirer of "She walks in beauty like the night;" with Mrs. Shelley; with Lady Blessington. Moreover, to say nothing of his "mathematical wife," who was as "blue as ether," the Countess Guiccioli could not only read and "inwardly digest" Corinna (see letter to Moore, January 2, 1820), but knew the Divina Commedia by heart, and was a critic as well as an inspirer of her lover's poetry.
If it is difficult to assign a reason or occasion for the composition of The Blues, it is a harder, perhaps an impossible, task to identify all the dramatis personæ. Botherby, Lady Bluemount, and Miss Diddle are, obviously, Sotheby, Lady Beaumont, and Lydia White. Scamp the Lecturer may be Hazlitt, who had incurred Byron's displeasure by commenting on his various and varying estimates of Napoleon (see Lectures on the English Poets, 1818, p. 304, and Don Juan, Canto 1. stanza ii. line 7, note to Buonaparte). Inkel seems to be meant for Byron himself, and Tracy, a friend, not a Lake poet, for Moore. Sir Richard and Lady Bluebottle may possibly symbolize Lord and Lady Holland; and Miss Lilac is, certainly, Miss Milbanke, the "Annabella" of Byron's courtship, not the "moral Clytemnestra" of his marriage and separation.
The Blues was published anonymously in the third number of the Liberal, which appeared April 26, 1823. The "Eclogue" was not attributed to Byron, and met with greater contempt than it deserved. In the Noctes Ambrosiance (Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, May, 1823, vol. xiii. p. 607), the third number of the Liberal is dismissed with the remark, "The last Number contains not one line of Byron's! Thank God! he has seen his error, and kicked them out." Brief but contemptuous notices appeared in the Literary Chronicle, April 26, and the Literary Gazette, May 3, 1823; while a short-lived periodical, named the Literary Register (May 3, quoted at length in John Bull, May 4, 1823), implies that the author (i.e. Leigh Hunt) would be better qualified to "catch the manners" of Lisson Grove than of May Fair. It is possible that this was the "last straw," and that the reception of The Blues hastened Byron's determination to part company with the profitless and ill-omened Liberal.
THE BLUES:[609]
A LITERARY ECLOGUE.
ECLOGUE THE FIRST.
London.—Before the Door of a Lecture Room.
Enter Tracy, meeting Inkel.
Ink. You're too late.
Tra. Is it over?
Ink. Nor will be this hour.
But the benches are crammed, like a garden in flower.
With the pride of our belles, who have made it the fashion;
So, instead of "beaux arts," we may say "la belle passion"
For learning, which lately has taken the lead in
The world, and set all the fine gentlemen reading.
Tra. I know it too well, and have worn out my patience
With studying to study your new publications.
There's Vamp, Scamp, and Mouthy, and Wordswords and Co.[610]
With their damnable——
Ink. Hold, my good friend, do you know10
Whom you speak to?
Tra. Right well, boy, and so does "the Row:"[611]
You're an author—a poet—
Ink. And think you that I
Can stand tamely in silence, to hear you decry
The Muses?
Tra. Excuse me: I meant no offence
To the Nine; though the number who make some pretence
To their favours is such——but the subject to drop,
I am just piping hot from a publisher's shop,
(Next door to the pastry-cook's; so that when I
Cannot find the new volume I wanted to buy
On the bibliopole's shelves, it is only two paces,20
As one finds every author in one of those places:)
Where I just had been skimming a charming critique,
So studded with wit, and so sprinkled with Greek!
Where your friend—you know who—has just got such a threshing,
That it is, as the phrase goes, extremely "refreshing."[612]
What a beautiful word!
Ink. Very true; 'tis so soft
And so cooling—they use it a little too oft;
And the papers have got it at last—but no matter.
So they've cut up our friend then?
Tra. Not left him a tatter—
Not a rag of his present or past reputation,30
Which they call a disgrace to the age, and the nation.
Ink. I'm sorry to hear this! for friendship, you know—
Our poor friend!—but I thought it would terminate so.
Our friendship is such, I'll read nothing to shock it.
You don't happen to have the Review in your pocket?
Tra. No; I left a round dozen of authors and others
(Very sorry, no doubt, since the cause is a brother's)
All scrambling and jostling, like so many imps,
And on fire with impatience to get the next glimpse.
Ink. Let us join them.
Tra. What, won't you return to the lecture?40
Ink. Why the place is so crammed, there's not room for a spectre.
Besides, our friend Scamp is to-day so absurd—[613]
Tra. How can you know that till you hear him?
Ink. I heard
Quite enough; and, to tell you the truth, my retreat
Was from his vile nonsense, no less than the heat.
Tra. I have had no great loss then?
Ink. Loss!—such a palaver!
I'd inoculate sooner my wife with the slaver
Of a dog when gone rabid, than listen two hours
To the torrent of trash which around him he pours,
Pumped up with such effort, disgorged with such labour,50
That——come—do not make me speak ill of one's neighbour.
Tra. I make you!
Ink. Yes, you! I said nothing until
You compelled me, by speaking the truth——
Tra. To speak ill?
Is that your deduction?
Ink. When speaking of Scamp ill,
I certainly follow, not set an example.
The fellow's a fool, an impostor, a zany.
Tra. And the crowd of to-day shows that one fool makes many.
But we two will be wise.
Ink. Pray, then, let us retire.
Tra. I would, but——
Ink. There must be attraction much higher
Than Scamp, or the Jew's harp he nicknames his lyre,60
To call you to this hotbed.
Tra. I own it—'tis true—
A fair lady——
Ink. A spinster?
Tra. Miss Lilac.
Ink. The Blue!
Tra. The heiress! The angel!
Ink. The devil! why, man,
Pray get out of this hobble as fast as you can.
You wed with Miss Lilac! 'twould be your perdition:
She's a poet, a chymist, a mathematician.[614]
Tra. I say she's an angel.
Ink. Say rather an angle.
If you and she marry, you'll certainly wrangle.
I say she's a Blue, man, as blue as the ether.
Tra. And is that any cause for not coming together?70
Ink. Humph! I can't say I know any happy alliance
Which has lately sprung up from a wedlock with science.
She's so learnéd in all things, and fond of concerning
Herself in all matters connected with learning,
That——
Tra. What?
Ink. I perhaps may as well hold my tongue;
But there's five hundred people can tell you you're wrong.
Tra. You forget Lady Lilac's as rich as a Jew.
Ink. Is it miss or the cash of mamma you pursue?
Tra. Why, Jack, I'll be frank with you—something of both.
The girl's a fine girl.
Ink. And you feel nothing loth80
To her good lady-mother's reversion; and yet
Her life is as good as your own, I will bet.
Tra. Let her live, and as long as she likes; I demand
Nothing more than the heart of her daughter and hand.
Ink. Why, that heart's in the inkstand—that hand on the pen.
Tra. A propos—Will you write me a song now and then?
Ink. To what purpose?
Tra. You know, my dear friend, that in prose
My talent is decent, as far as it goes;
But in rhyme——
Ink. You're a terrible stick, to be sure.
Tra. I own it; and yet, in these times, there's no lure90
For the heart of the fair like a stanza or two;
And so, as I can't, will you furnish a few?
Ink. In your name?
Tra. In my name. I will copy them out,
To slip into her hand at the very next rout.
Ink. Are you so far advanced as to hazard this?
Tra. Why,
Do you think me subdued by a Blue-stocking's eye,
So far as to tremble to tell her in rhyme
What I've told her in prose, at the least, as sublime?
Ink. As sublime! If i be so, no need of my Muse.
Tra. But consider, dear Inkel, she's one of the "Blues."100
Ink. As sublime!—Mr. Tracy—I've nothing to say.
Stick to prose—As sublime!!—but I wish you good day.
Tra. Nay, stay, my dear fellow—consider—I'm wrong;
I own it; but, prithee, compose me the song.
Ink. As sublime!!
Tra. I but used the expression in haste.
Ink. That may be, Mr. Tracy, but shows damned bad taste.
Tra. I own it, I know it, acknowledge it—what
Can I say to you more?
Ink. I see what you'd be at:
You disparage my parts with insidious abuse,
Till you think you can turn them best to your own use.110
Tra. And is that not a sign I respect them?
Ink. Why that
To be sure makes a difference.
Tra. I know what is what:
And you, who're a man of the gay world, no less
Than a poet of t'other, may easily guess
That I never could mean, by a word, to offend
A genius like you, and, moreover, my friend.
Ink. No doubt; you by this time should know what is due
To a man of——but come—let us shake hands.
Tra. You knew,
And you know, my dear fellow, how heartily I,
Whatever you publish, am ready to buy.120
Ink. That's my bookseller's business; I care not for sale;
Indeed the best poems at first rather fail.
There were Renegade's epics, and Botherby's plays,[615]
And my own grand romance——
Tra. Had its full share of praise.
I myself saw it puffed in the "Old Girl's Review."[616]
Ink. What Review?
Tra. Tis the English "Journal de Trevoux;"[617]
A clerical work of our Jesuits at home.
Have you never yet seen it?
Ink. That pleasure's to come.
Tra. Make haste then.
Ink. Why so?
Tra. I have heard people say
That it threatened to give up the ghost t'other day.[618]130
Ink. Well, that is a sign of some spirit.
Tra. No doubt.
Shall you be at the Countess of Fiddlecome's rout?
Ink. I've a card, and shall go: but at present, as soon
As friend Scamp shall be pleased to step down from the moon,
(Where he seems to be soaring in search of his wits),
And an interval grants from his lecturing fits,
I'm engaged to the Lady Bluebottle's collation,
To partake of a luncheon and learn'd conversation:
'Tis a sort of reunion for Scamp, on the days
Of his lecture, to treat him with cold tongue and praise.140
And I own, for my own part, that 'tis not unpleasant.
Will you go? There's Miss Lilac will also be present.
Tra. That "metal's attractive."
Ink. No doubt—to the pocket.
Tra. You should rather encourage my passion than shock it.
But let us proceed; for I think by the hum——
Ink. Very true; let us go, then, before they can come,
Or else we'll be kept here an hour at their levee,
On the rack of cross questions, by all the blue bevy.
Hark! Zounds, they'll be on us; I know by the drone
Of old Botherby's spouting ex-cathedrâ tone.[619]150
Aye! there he is at it. Poor Scamp! better join
Your friends, or he'll pay you back in your own coin.
Tra. All fair; 'tis but lecture for lecture.
Ink. That's clear.
But for God's sake let's go, or the Bore will be here.
Come, come: nay, I'm off.
[Exit Inkel.
Tra. You are right, and I'll follow;
'Tis high time for a "Sic me servavit Apollo."[620]
And yet we shall have the whole crew on our kibes,[621]
Blues, dandies, and dowagers, and second-hand scribes,
All flocking to moisten their exquisite throttles
With a glass of Madeira[622] at Lady Bluebottle's.160
[Exit Tracy.
ECLOGUE THE SECOND.
An Apartment in the House of Lady Bluebottle.—A Table prepared.
Sir Richard Bluebottle solus.
Was there ever a man who was married so sorry?
Like a fool, I must needs do the thing in a hurry.
My life is reversed, and my quiet destroyed;
My days, which once passed in so gentle a void,
Must now, every hour of the twelve, be employed;
The twelve, do I say?—of the whole twenty-four,
Is there one which I dare call my own any more?
What with driving and visiting, dancing and dining,
What with learning, and teaching, and scribbling, and shining,
In science and art, I'll be cursed if I know10
Myself from my wife; for although we are two,
Yet she somehow contrives that all things shall be done
In a style which proclaims us eternally one.
But the thing of all things which distresses me more
Than the bills of the week (though they trouble me sore)
Is the numerous, humorous, backbiting crew
Of scribblers, wits, lecturers, white, black, and blue,
Who are brought to my house as an inn, to my cost—
For the bill here, it seems, is defrayed by the host—
No pleasure! no leisure! no thought for my pains,20
But to hear a vile jargon which addles my brains;
A smatter and chatter, gleaned out of reviews,
By the rag, tag, and bobtail, of those they call "Blues;"
A rabble who know not——But soft, here they come!
Would to God I were deaf! as I'm not, I'll be dumb.
Enter Lady Bluebottle, Miss Lilac, , MR. Botherby, Inkel, Tracy, Miss Mazarine, and others, with Scamp the Lecturer, etc., etc.
Lady Blueb.
Ah! Sir Richard, good morning: I've brought you some friends.
Sir Rich. (bows, and afterwards aside).
If friends, they're the first.
Lady Blueb. But the luncheon attends.
I pray ye be seated, "sans cérémonie."
Mr. Scamp, you're fatigued; take your chair there, next me.
[They all sit.
Sir Rich. (aside). If he does, his fatigue is to come.
Lady Blueb. Mr. Tracy—
Lady Bluemount—Miss Lilac—be pleased, pray, to place ye;31
And you, Mr. Botherby—
Both. Oh, my dear Lady,
I obey.
Lady Blueb. Mr. Inkel, I ought to upbraid ye:
You were not at the lecture.
Ink. Excuse me, I was;
But the heat forced me out in the best part—alas!
And when—
Lady Blueb. To be sure it was broiling; but then
You have lost such a lecture!
Both. The best of the ten.
Tra. How can you know that? there are two more.
Both. Because
I defy him to beat this day's wondrous applause.
The very walls shook.
Ink. Oh, if that be the test,40
I allow our friend Scamp has this day done his best.
Miss Lilac, permit me to help you;—a wing?
Miss Lil. No more, sir, I thank you. Who lectures next spring?
Both. Dick Dunder.
Ink. That is, if he lives.
Miss Lil. And why not?
Ink. No reason whatever, save that he's a sot.
Lady Bluemount! a glass of Madeira?
Lady Bluem. With pleasure.
Ink. How does your friend Wordswords, that Windermere treasure?
Does he stick to his lakes, like the leeches he sings,[623]
And their gatherers, as Homer sung warriors and kings?
Lady Bluem. He has just got a place.[624]
Ink. As a footman?
Lady Bluem. For shame!
Nor profane with your sneers so poetic a name.51
Ink. Nay, I meant him no evil, but pitied his master;
For the poet of pedlers 'twere, sure, no disaster
To wear a new livery; the more, as 'tis not
The first time he has turned both his creed and his coat.
Lady Bluem. For shame! I repeat. If Sir George could but hear—
Lady Blueb. Never mind our friend Inkel; we all know, my dear,
'Tis his way.
Sir Rich. But this place——
Ink. Is perhaps like friend Scamp's,
A lecturer's.
Lady Bluem. Excuse me—'tis one in the "Stamps:"
He is made a collector.
Tra. Collector!
Sir Rich. How?
Miss Lil. What?60
Ink. I shall think of him oft when I buy a new hat:
There his works will appear——
Lady Bluem. Sir, they reach to the Ganges.
Ink. I sha'n't go so far—I can have them at Grange's.[625]
Lady Bluem. Oh fie!
Miss Lil. And for shame!
Lady Bluem. You're too bad.
Both. Very good!
Lady Bluem. How good?
Lady Blueb. He means nought—'tis his phrase.
Lady Bluem. He grows rude.
Lady Blueb. He means nothing; nay, ask him.
Lady Bluem. Pray, Sir! did you mean
What you say?
Ink. Never mind if he did; 'twill be seen
That whatever he means won't alloy what he says.
Both. Sir!
Ink. Pray be content with your portion of praise;
'Twas in your defence.
Both. If you please, with submission70
I can make out my own.
Ink. It would be your perdition.
While you live, my dear Botherby, never defend
Yourself or your works; but leave both to a friend.
Apropos—Is your play then accepted at last?
Ink. Why I thought—that's to say—there had passed
A few green-room whispers, which hinted,—you know
That the taste of the actors at best is so so.[626]
Both. Sir, the green-room's in rapture, and so's the Committee.
Ink. Aye—yours are the plays for exciting our "pity
And fear," as the Greek says: for "purging the mind,"80
I doubt if you'll leave us an equal behind.
Both. I have written the prologue, and meant to have prayed
For a spice of your wit in an epilogue's aid.
Ink. Well, time enough yet, when the play's to be played.
Is it cast yet?
Both. The actors are fighting for parts,
As is usual in that most litigious of arts.
Lady Blueb. We'll all make a party, and go the first night.
Tra. And you promised the epilogue, Inkel.
Ink. Not quite.
However, to save my friend Botherby trouble,
I'll do what I can, though my pains must be double.90
Tra. Why so?
Ink. To do justice to what goes before.
Both. Sir, I'm happy to say, I've no fears on that score.
Your parts, Mr. Inkel, are——
Ink. Never mind mine;
Stick to those of your play, which is quite your own line.
Lady Bluem. You're a fugitive writer, I think, sir, of rhymes?[627]
Ink. Yes, ma'am; and a fugitive reader sometimes.
On Wordswords, for instance, I seldom alight,
Or on Mouthey, his friend, without taking to flight.
Lady Bluem. Sir, your taste is too common; but time and posterity
Will right these great men, and this age's severity100
Become its reproach.
Ink. I've no sort of objection,
So I'm not of the party to take the infection.
Lady Blueb. Perhaps you have doubts that they ever will take?
Ink. Not at all; on the contrary, those of the lake
Have taken already, and still will continue
To take—what they can, from a groat to a guinea,
Of pension or place;—but the subject's a bore.
Lady Bluem. Well, sir, the time's coming.
Ink. Scamp! don't you feel sore?
What say you to this?
Scamp. They have merit, I own;
Though their system's absurdity keeps it unknown,110
Ink. Then why not unearth it in one of your lectures?
Scamp. It is only time past which comes under my strictures.
Lady Blueb. Come, a truce with all tartness;—the joy of my heart
Is to see Nature's triumph o'er all that is art.
Wild Nature!—Grand Shakespeare!
Both. And down Aristotle!
Lady Bluem. Sir George[628] thinks exactly with Lady Bluebottle:
And my Lord Seventy-four,[629] who protects our dear Bard,
And who gave him his place, has the greatest regard
For the poet, who, singing of pedlers and asses,
Has found out the way to dispense with Parnassus.120
Tra. And you, Scamp!—
Scamp. I needs must confess I'm embarrassed.
Ink. Don't call upon Scamp, who's already so harassed
With old schools, and new schools, and no schools, and all schools[630].
Tra. Well, one thing is certain, that some must be fools.
I should like to know who.
Ink. And I should not be sorry
To know who are not:—it would save us some worry.
Lady Blueb. A truce with remark, and let nothing control
This "feast of our reason, and flow of the soul."
Oh! my dear Mr. Botherby! sympathise!—I
Now feel such a rapture, I'm ready to fly,130
I feel so elastic—"so buoyant—so buoyant!"[631]
Ink. Tracy! open the window.
Tra. I wish her much joy on't.
Both. For God's sake, my Lady Bluebottle, check not
This gentle emotion, so seldom our lot
Upon earth. Give it way: 'tis an impulse which lifts
Our spirits from earth—the sublimest of gifts;
For which poor Prometheus was chained to his mountain:
'Tis the source of all sentiment—feeling's true fountain;
'Tis the Vision of Heaven upon Earth: 'tis the gas
Of the soul: 'tis the seizing of shades as they pass,140
And making them substance: 'tis something divine:—
Ink. Shall I help you, my friend, to a little more wine?
Both. I thank you: not any more, sir, till I dine.[632]
Ink. Apropos—Do you dine with Sir Humphry to day?
Tra. I should think with Duke Humphry[633] was more in your way.
Ink. It might be of yore; but we authors now look
To the Knight, as a landlord, much more than the Duke.
The truth is, each writer now quite at his ease is,
And (except with his publisher) dines where he pleases.
But 'tis now nearly five, and I must to the Park.150
Tra. And I'll take a turn with you there till 'tis dark.
And you, Scamp—
Scamp. Excuse me! I must to my notes,
For my lecture next week.
Ink. He must mind whom he quotes
Out of "Elegant Extracts."
Lady Blueb. Well, now we break up;
But remember Miss Diddle[634] invites us to sup.
Ink. Then at two hours past midnight we all meet again,
For the sciences, sandwiches, hock, and champagne!
Tra. And the sweet lobster salad![635]
Both. I honour that meal;
For 'tis then that our feelings most genuinely—feel.
Ink. True; feeling is truest then, far beyond question:
I wish to the gods 'twas the same with digestion!161
Lady Blueb. Pshaw!—never mind that; for one moment of feeling
Is worth—God knows what.
Ink. 'Tis at least worth concealing
For itself, or what follows—But here comes your carriage.
Sir Rich. (aside).
I wish all these people were d——d with my marriage!
[Exeunt.
FOOTNOTES:
[ [609] {573}[Benjamin Stillingfleet is said to have attended evening parties at Mrs. Montague's in grey or blue worsted stockings, in lieu of full dress. The ladies who excused and tolerated this defiance of the conventions were nicknamed "blues," or "blue-stockings." Hannah More describes such a club or coterie in her Bas Bleu, which was circulated in MS. in 1784 (Boswell's Life of Johnson, 1848, p. 689). A farce by Moore, entitled The M. P., or The Blue-Stocking, was played for the first time at the Lyceum, September 30, 1811. The heroine, "Lady Bab Blue, is a pretender to poetry, chemistry, etc."—Genest's Hist. of the Stage, 1832, viii. 270.]
[ [610] {574}[Compare the dialogue between Mr. Paperstamp, Mr. Feathernest, Mr. Vamp, etc., in Peacock's Melincourt, cap. xxxii., Works, 1875, i. 272.]
[ [611] [Compare—
"The last edition see by Long. and Co.,
Rees, Hurst, and Orme, our fathers of the Row."
The Search after Happiness, by Sir Walter Scott.]
[ [612] [This phrase is said to have been first used in the Edinburgh Review—probably by Jeffrey. (See review of Rogers's Human Life, 1818, Edin. Rev., vol. 31, p. 325.)]
[ [613] {575}[It is possible that the description of Hazlitt's Lectures of 1818 is coloured by recollections of Coleridge's Lectures of 1811-1812, which Byron attended (see letter to Harness, December 6, 1811, Letters, 1898, ii. 76, note 1); but the substance of the attack is probably derived from Gifford's review of Lectures on the English Poets, delivered at the Surrey Institution (Quarterly Review, December, 1818, vol. xix. pp. 424-434.)]
[ [614] {576}["Yesterday, a very pretty letter from Annabella.... She is ... very little spoiled, which is strange in an heiress.... She is a poetess—a mathematician—a metaphysician."—Journal, November 30, 1813, Letters, 1898, ii. 357]
[ [615] {578}[The term "renegade" was applied to Southey by William Smith, M.P., in the House of Commons, March 14, 1817 (vide ante, [p. 482]). Sotheby's plays, Ivan, The Death of Darnley, Zamorin and Zama, were published under the title of Five Tragedies, in 1814.]
[ [616] [Compare—
"I've bribed my Grandmother's Review the British."
Don Juan, Canto I. stanza ccix. line 9.
And see "Letter to the Editor of 'My Grandmother's Review,'" Letters, 1900, iv. Appendix VII. pp. 465-470. The reference may be to a review of the Fourth Canto of Childe Harold, which appeared in the British Review, January, 1818, or to a more recent and, naturally, most hostile notice of Don Juan (No. xviii. 1819).]
[ [617] [The Journal de Trévoux, published under the title of Mémoires de Trévoux (1701-1775, 265 vols. 12°), edited by members of the Society of Jesus, was an imitation of the Journal des Savants. The original matter, the Mémoires, contain a mine of information for the student of the history of French Literature; but the reviews, critical notices, etc., to which Byron refers, were of a highly polemical and partisan character, and were the subject of attack on the part of Protestant and free-thinking antagonists. In a letter to Moore, dated Ravenna, June 22, 1821, Byron says, "Now, if we were but together a little to combine our Journal of Trevoux!" (Letters, 1901, v. 309). The use of the same illustration in letter and poem is curious and noteworthy.]
[ [618] {579}[The publication of the British Review was discontinued in 1825.]
[ [619] [For "Botherby," vide ante, Beppo, stanza lxxii. line 7, [p. 182, note 1]; and with the "ex-cathedrâ tone" compare "that awful note of woe," Vision of Judgment, stanza xc. line 4, ante, [p. 518].]
[ [620] {580}["Sotheby is a good man, rhymes well (if not wisely), but is a bore. He seizes you by the button. One night of a rout at Mrs. Hope's, he had fastened upon me (something about Agamemnon, or Orestes, or some of his plays), notwithstanding my symptoms of manifest distress (for I was in love, and just nicked a minute, when neither mothers, nor husbands, nor rivals, nor gossips, were near my then idol, who was beautiful as the Statues of the Gallery where we stood at the time)—Sotheby I say had seized upon me by the button and the heart-strings, and spared neither. William Spencer, who likes fun, and don't dislike mischief, saw my case, and coming up to us both, took me by the hand, and pathetically bade me farewell; 'for,' said he, 'I see it is all over with you.' Sotheby then went way. 'Sic me servavit Apollo.'"—Detached Thoughts, 1821, Letters, 1901, v. 433.]
[ [621] [For Byron's misapprehension concerning "kibes," see Childe Harold, Canto I. stanza lxvii. line 5, Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 64, note 3.]
[ [622] ["Where can the animals who write this trash have been bred, to fancy that ladies drink bumpers of Madeira at luncheon?"—Literary Register, May 3, 1823.]
[ [623] {582}[Wordsworth's Resolution and Independence, originally entitled The Leech-gatherer, was written in 1802, and published in 1807.]
[ [624] [Wordsworth was appointed Distributor of Stamps for the County of Westmoreland, in March, 1813. Lord Lonsdale and Sir George Beaumont were "suretys for the due execution of the trust."—Life of William Wordsworth, by William Knight, 1889, ii. 210.]
[ [625]{583} Grange is or was a famous pastry-cook and fruiterer in Piccadilly. ["Grange's" (James Grange, confectioner, No. 178, Piccadilly, see Kent's London Directory of 1820), moved farther west some fifteen years ago.]
[ [626] {584}["When I belonged to the Drury Lane Committee ... the number of plays upon the shelves were about five hundred.... Mr. Sotheby obligingly offered us all his tragedies, and I pledged myself; and, notwithstanding many squabbles with my Committe[e]d Brethren, did get 'Ivan' accepted, read, and the parts distributed. But lo! in the very heart of the matter, upon some tepid-ness on the part of Kean, or warmth on that of the author, Sotheby withdrew his play."—Detached Thoughts, 1821, Letters, 1901, v. 442.]
[ [627] [Fugitive Pieces is the title of the suppressed quarto edition of Byron's juvenile poems.]
[ [628] {585}[Sir George Beaumont, Bart., of Coleorton, Leicestershire (1753-1827), landscape-painter, art critic, and picture-collector, one of the founders of the National Gallery, married, in 1778, Margaret Willis, granddaughter of Chief Justice Willis. She corresponded with Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy, and with Coleridge (see Memorials of Coleorton, 1888). Coleridge visited the Beaumonts for the first time at Dunmore, in 1804. "I was not received here," he tells Wordsworth, "with mere kindness; I was welcomed almost as you welcomed me when first I visited you at Racedown" (Letters of S. T. Coleridge, 1895, ii. 459). Scott (Memoirs of the life, etc., 1838, ii, II) describes Sir George Beaumont as "by far the most sensible and pleasing man I ever knew, kind, too, in his nature, and generous and gentle in society.... He was the great friend of Wordsworth, and understood his poetry.">[
[ [629] [It was not Wordsworth's patron, William Lord Lonsdale, but his kinsman James, the first earl, who, towards the close of the American war, offered to build and man a ship of seventy-four guns.]
[ [630] {586}[For this harping on "schools" of poetry, see Hazlitt's Lectures "On the Living Poets" Lectures on the English Poets (No. viii.), 1818, p. 318.]
[ [631] Fact from life, with the words.
[ [632] [Sir Humphry Davy (1778-1829), President of the Royal Society, received the honour of knighthood April 8, 1812. He was created a baronet January 18, 1819.]
[ [633] {587}[Compare "We have been for many years at a great distance from each other; we are now separated. You have combined arsenic with your gold, Sir Humphry! You are brittle, and I will rather dine with Duke Humphry than with you."—Anima Poetæ, by S. T. Coleridge, 1895, p. 218.]
[ [634] ["Lydia White," writes Lady Morgan (Memoirs, 1862, ii. 236), "was a personage of much social celebrity in her day. She was an Irish lady of large fortune and considerable talent, noted for her hospitality and dinners in all the capitals of Europe." She is mentioned by Moore (Memoirs, 1853, in. 21), Miss Berry (Journal, 1866, ii. 484), Ticknor (Life, Letters, and Journal, 1876, i. 176), etc., etc.
Byron saw her for the last time in Venice, when she borrowed a copy of Lalla Rookh (Letter to Moore, June 1, 1818, Letters, 1900, iv. 237). Sir Walter Scott, who knew her well, records her death: "January 28, [1827]. Heard of Miss White's death—she was a woman of wit, and had a feeling and kind heart. Poor Lydia! I saw the Duke of York and her in London, when Death, it seems, was brandishing his dart over them.
'The view o't gave them little fright.'"
(Memoirs of the Life, etc., 1838, iv. 110.)]
[ [635] [Moore, following the example of Pope, who thought his "delicious lobster-nights" worth commemorating, gives details of a supper at Watier's, May 19, 1814, at which Kean was present, when Byron "confined himself to lobsters, and of these finished two or three, to his own share," etc.—an Ambrosian night, indeed!—Life, p. 254.]
END OF VOL. IV.